


waning and waxing

by youlovelythief



Category: Bleach
Genre: Adultery, Canon Compliant, F/M, post-686
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9129421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youlovelythief/pseuds/youlovelythief
Summary: A farewell and a greeting, before the wedding.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hi, this is me trying to rationalize why the hell rukia wouldn't change her name once she married renji bc the reason in that god awful novel is stupid as all hell. my conclusion? ichiruki. bc of course it is.

Rukia’s never considered herself a _bride_.

She’s a long list of other titles—she’s a Kuchiki, a vice captain, a soldier, a death god. She’s a sword at her hip and Sode no Shirayuki nipping like frostbite at the edge of her vision. A vice captain without a captain, rebuilding her division in the aftermath of a war—two wars, really.

But a bride? A _noble_ bride?

Rukia’s never forgotten the streets of Rukongai, and yet here she is, on the eve of her wedding. Staring out at the warm summer night, at the Kuchiki koi gardens from the porch outside her room. She does this most nights that she’s home; the way the clouds skid across the sky would throw swaths of moonlight over the ponds randomly as she watched, sleepless. Rukia has never found sleep easily.

Tonight, though, the sky is black save for the stars, and Rukia wonders what a new moon means before a wedding. She supposes someone would have told her if it was bad—but then again, maybe not. Rukia furrows her brow as she pours another glass of sake from the bottle beside her. Of course you wouldn’t tell a bride about a bad omen—for all her efforts to be as hands-off as possible throughout the mind-numbing planning, for whatever reason, people still expected the Kuchiki Bride to snap at any moment. They all tip-toed around her as if she was surrounded by broken glass on the floor, they had asked for her opinion on napkins and tablecloths and jewelry and color schemes for _six months_ , and she had politely agreed to all of it, had fixed her noble, thin-lipped smile on her face and gone on with the whole affair. She had been the Perfect Lady the elders had always wanted, and still people asked her if she was alright, if she needed anything, if she was _ready—_

She is getting married tomorrow. What were they all so nervous about?

Rukia tips her head back to drain the little cup of sake just as she hears the faint unlatching of the garden gate to her right. She sets it down only to see that unmistakable shock of orange hair in the dim light provided by only the outline of the moon, attached to a tall, lithe body loping across the garden to her, the koi bridge squeaking beneath his step.

“Well, well, well,” she calls when he’s near enough, warm and tipsy, limbs as loose as the knot holding her white robe around her waist. “If it isn’t the man of the hour.”

“If it isn’t the lady of the house,” he replies, grin flashing as he hops up next to her. “You got a glass for me?”

“Look at you, demanding hospitality,” even as she smirks and leans backwards to reach one just inside the doorway to her bedroom. Her lukewarm skin suddenly registers the slightly cooler air as her gown slips off her shoulder, but she doesn’t fix it. The summer night is more than pleasant, and it’s just him. “Shouldn’t you be at a bar right now, best man?”

He accepts the glass, laughing. “Where d’you think I just came from? I just _slaughtered_ Ikkaku’s ass in a fist fight. Got outta there before he tried to come after me with a sword.”

She smiles as they clink glasses, both easily throwing them back. They settle into silence, the cicadas whirring, the little waterfalls trickling in the dark. She’s just about to tease him for learning how to drink so well when he partially turns to her, hand hesitantly touching the back of his head.

“Congratulations, Rukia.”

He says it softly, unexpectedly softly. Quiet like the night around them, like the way he used to say her name before the wars—before her execution, Hueco Mundo, the Palace. Rukia suddenly wants to ask if her sheets are still in his closet.

And then he turns to her with a smirk and says, “On making vice captain.”

“Eh?” she snaps immediately, out of her reverie, eyebrow arched. “Aren’t you a little late with that? _Three years_ late?”

“Well, I woulda told you as soon as I saw you, but some crazy flying midget had to hit me before I could—“

“Fool, of course I kicked you, you had that stupid look on your face—!“

If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in the handful of short, yet full, years they have known each other, it’s this bickering, this easy, quick exchange of words and quips that she’s never really managed to encounter in anyone else. They go on like this for a while—he leans back on his hands, she lays on her side, elbow propped under her chin, the wood smooth even through her silk robe. They eventually abandon the shot glasses in favor of trading the bottle between them in much the same way they trade anecdotes and memories, glimpses backwards into the last five years. They’re laughing and teasing and snapping at each other, and something about this—the summer, the night, the faint warmth of his hair color that she can see in the dark—is all so acutely familiar to her. Faintly, she reasons that the heady pulse of the alcohol through her veins is making her sentimental, making her poke through her memories of before the war until she can remember this feeling.

What she finds is the riverbank, the roof outside his window, the lights of Karakura Town below them.

_Ah,_ she thinks, as they fall quiet again. _It’s him._

Rukia allows herself to acknowledge how nice it is, to have him in Soul Society like this. Peacefully—almost normally.

Ichigo sets the sake down next to her hand, lets his own drop next to it. She sits up and runs a hand through her hair, crosses her legs as they dangle off the porch next to his.

“I think I remember telling you,” he says quietly, then, his voice warm and low again, almost gentle, “that I had hoped our first greeting wouldn’t be our last. Well—“

He looks up at her, cocks her a half-grin.

“I’m Kurosaki Ichigo. And you’re—“

She smiles. “Kuchiki Rukia.”

“And this—“

His hand slides over hers, interlocking their fingers.

“—is our last greeting.”

“You came all this way to tell me that?” she laughs softly.                                        

“No,” he whispers. “I came to say goodbye.”

Her heart drops suddenly. “You’re not coming tomorrow?”

“Idiot,” he breathes. “Of course I am. I’m saying goodbye to Kuchiki Rukia. And having my first greeting with—“

Rukia realizes how close he is at that moment, his nose nearly brushing hers, his bottom lashes discernible one by one even in the darkness of the new moon.

“—Abarai Rukia.”

She closes the space between their lips with barely any movement, just a shift of her thighs on the porch and the smell of the night on him permeates her senses, she can feel it wander into her hair, slide down the front of her gown, cling to her lips in the hope of never being wiped away, and Rukia doesn’t really know _why_ she does this, just knows that the sound of that name doesn’t fit against her mouth quite the same way his _Rukia_ does, just knows that he tastes sharp and acidic and sweet, like smoke and stone and blood hitting the roof of her mouth on a battlefield, like everything she’s ever known, everything she’s ever wanted, an entire life in the shared space of their lips.

_Rukia, Rukia,_ she kisses into him. _I’m still Rukia._

* * *

 Ichigo slips into her room under the blackest sky Soul Society has seen in years.

He leaves the Kuchiki garden gate ajar just as dawn creeps into the sky.

* * *

Rukia stares at herself in the mirror—veil, glossed lips, and all.

Rangiku brushes a stray strand of hair off her face from where she stands beside the vanity.

“Well,” she grins, “are you ready to walk down that aisle, Mrs. Abarai?”

Rukia gently untucks the unruly lock, lets it fall back to her forehead.

“Kuchiki,” she finally says. “I’m staying a Kuchiki.”


End file.
